


Across The Universe

by Glinda



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: AU, Community: femslash08, F/F, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-15
Updated: 2008-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a whole other world in there, reaching out for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across The Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [](http://livii.livejournal.com/profile)[**livii**](http://livii.livejournal.com/) for poking my grammar with a sharp stick, any mistakes that remain are entirely my own. Oh and slight spoilers for Journey's End and Exit Wounds

She's not entirely sure how it started or when. She knows where, though. Long nights working too hard in the Hub. Pushing herself further and further, scared to stop, scared to rest, scared of screwing up. She tells herself she works so hard to prove herself, so Jack won't send her back to the dark place. She pretends to herself that she doesn't burn the candle at both ends to avoid the nightmares, the dreams that see her back in her filthy hole, prisoner once more dreaming of a rescue that is never coming. The dreams that come as she watches over the rift are different, calmer. She's wandering a labyrinth, not searching or seeking, just exploring. The light is green and gentle; the floor beneath her bare feet is metal grilles but they are smooth to the touch.

She finds the centre one night. There's a large hexagonal space, all coral struts, tarnished metalwork and soft green light, a cross between a spaceship and a submarine. Her very own steam-punk spaceship to play with, it hums like it's alive, groans like it's hurting. The controls are complex and the computer text is in a language so entirely alien it goes through frustrating and confusing and out the other side. So she does what she's best at and takes it apart, putting it back together, correcting and fixing things as she goes along. In her waking hours she applies the techniques she's learned from the ship to the rift manipulator and isn't surprised when it responds with a sound that reverberates in the back of her head like a cat's purr.

She wakes one morning, not at her desk but on the couch in the hub. Jack's standing a little way away, watching her, and all she can think is how old he looks. She's seen glimpses of this Jack, always quickly hidden, and it fascinates her. He's building something and she's proud to be part of it, but she doesn't really know him. Now she wonders if anyone really does. She tells him about the dreams and he listens carefully, putting words to the images in her head that she understands in her dreams but not on waking. He's as distant as a star and closer than he's ever been and she falls back to sleep his hand in hers. Sometimes they both need a friend.

One night there's a girl in her spaceship. She's seen little glimpses of her in odd moments but never anything clear and solid. All blonde hair and mischievous grin, she stands there clear as day and demands to know what Tosh is doing there, as though she were the one invading. The girl shines like a small sun, so brightly. The light from inside her growing steadily until it almost seems to consume her, and a different voice entirely asks after Jack. Both the star and the girl seem pleased with her answer.

It takes her three days to pluck up the courage to tell Jack about the dream, stumbling over words to describe the girl, avoiding the words that fit inside her head: something of the wolf about her.

Time passes. London falls and Jack begins to build his project in earnest. A team is being woven around this strange tear in space and time, and she begins work on her own project to use the Rift to keep them safe. This is all she has, and she will not lose this too.

Sometimes there is a man whose face shifts and changes. He sits with her awhile and they talk of the world that ships like this once called home, of burnt orange skies and silver trees, and the words melt like snow in her mind when she wakes. She tells him she's fixing his ship and he laughs and wishes her luck; he's spent his whole life on that. There's a long silence and then a wry smile, and he suggests that maybe the ship wanted a going over by a professional for a change. She doesn't see him again after that, so she takes that as permission to do as she will.

Later there's a girl with fiery hair in her spaceship. The girl, woman really, laughs out loud at the notion, at the thought of the ship's technical owner's imagined response to Tosh's possessiveness. She's not like anyone Tosh's ever met, and after Mary she never thought she'd think that about anyone ever again. She ventures out of the ship for the first time in all of her dreams. Donna – Donna Noble, best temp in Chiswick, she's going to save the universe and doesn't know it yet – drags her off on adventures, sometimes to see wonders, others to run for their lives, always full of laughter. Donna's terribly fond of her waking travelling companion, Tosh can tell despite the insults, but she savours their secret dream-life, these adventures that are theirs and theirs alone.

Meeting Martha in real life is a jolt. She's all professionalism and confidence but she remembers a lost girl with sad eyes, head on her shoulder talking of wonder and monsters and needing a friend. She doesn't mention the watch that was always tight in Martha's hand in the dreams, doesn't want to add to the shadows that flick behind her eyes when she thinks no one, or no one but Jack is watching. But then it's her own turn to need a shoulder for comfort and she knows nothing will be quite the same.

Her waking life is carnage, everything slowly spinning out of control. She clings to the things she can still control, obsessing over the Time Lock, unsure just why it's so important she finish it now. Almost like there's a clock in her head counting down, she feels like the white rabbit with a pocket watch that always reads too late. In her dreams, Donna has learnt to steer the ship but the adventures are fewer. Mostly it's just her head on Donna lap, fingers stroking her hair, soothing. Her friend's voice is oddly tender and reassuring, despite the rough edges from so long spent shouting at the world, warning that she'll burn out if she's not careful, but burning's what she does, whether candles or bridges, this is who she is now.

One day the dream doesn't end. She wakes on the grated floor with Donna muttering over her about paying more attention during Martha's first aid lessons next time while she secures the bandages round Tosh's midriff. She's been shot she remembers vaguely, but she participates gladly in Donna's determined denial. She knows three people who've walked this path before and come back to tell the tale. They spoke of only darkness, and here there is none of that. Donna's waking world is full of chaos, the stars are going out and Tosh thinks she recognises this pattern.

Her friend is different now, manic and excitable, full of random knowledge and unexpected wisdom. Her eyes seem to burn in a way that Tosh has seen once before. She knows this tale never ends well. She finds ways to distract her from the spinning worlds, worlds that are, that were, that will be, worlds that aren't, worlds that weren't and worlds that will never be. Donna teaches her the language of the ship, all circles and lines, and they draw them all over each other's skin. Erasing each other's mistakes with lips and tongues, they are drowning in forgetfulness, drowning in remembrance: ever searching for an answer, a way out of the labyrinth. They're good with patterns, it's part of who they both are. The logic appeals to them, as equally defying it drives them. The end is coming and they can't stop it, so they savour each moment desperately.

The ship is empty for the longest time. Somewhere her Time Lock is keeping the remains of her team safe. Out in the real world Donna is burning up with what's been unleashed in her head, and around her the ship that they both call home is burning in both realities. She cannot watch, she cannot know of the world from here. The ship gives her what comfort it can but it has other things on its mind. Existence continues, reality, in her own special sense, persists, so she presumes Donna succeeded. She waits with the cold lump in her heart that tells her that Donna won't be coming back.

She does though, different once again. She's finding her feet again, full of anger, resentment, grief and relief. Tosh holds her hand while she figures out who she is anymore. Not the girl living out there in the world, not the one she'd learned to be, not the DoctorDonna. Somehow she is all of those and none of those. It needs time, but they have a universe of it, and a timeship, a TARDIS she knows now, to play in it.

They lie on the floor together, the grating digging into their bare legs and the pulse of the time rotor casting strange patterns on their faces. With fingers intertwined they plot their next adventure. They shouldn't be here, they know. Somewhere Tosh's body is cold in the Torchwood vault, while Donna's waking memory-wiped self is slowly learning to be fantastic all by herself – well, maybe with a few subtle hints from them. But for now they don't care, somewhere out there, there are people made of smoke and cities made of song, and they'll have another adventure thank you very much, before the tea gets cold.

They can't help being just that special.


End file.
